Tasmania Holiday

For the Easter school break we went to Tasmania. We flew into the capital city of Hobart. After checking in to our hotel we went for a walk and one of Greenpeace's ships was in the harbour. They let us come on board and gave us a little tour of the boat. They had just been in a confrontation with some Japaneese whaling ships (they showed us a video of the event, where they rammed the Japaneese harpooning boats several times) and their anchor came loose in the middle of it and was swinging around and punched a hole in their hull. So they were in Hobart for repairs. You can see the hole in one of the pictures. We then moved on and continued exploring the town.

Mt. Wellington

The second day we were in Tasmania we drove to the top of Mt. Wellington which is right outside the capital city of Hobart. It had just snowed at the top and was about -3 C. Someone had built a snowman; he was about 12 inches tall, hiding amongst the rocks.

Hiking the coastline of Tasmania

Wineglass Bay

On the east side of Tasmania there were plenty of scenic hiking spots. These are photos of Wineglass Bay. Orange colored lichen covered many of the rocks.

Melbourne

Melbourne

Cow In Tree

Melbourne

Since Tasmania is quite close to Melbourne after exploring the east side of Tasmania we caught a flight over and checked out the city. Then we went back to Tasmania and hiked around the west part of the island. The airfare worked out to be cheaper to do it that way, if we wanted to see Melbourne.We did lots of sight seeing and a couple of tourist destinations such as the Aquarium. One attraction of the aquarium is a tunnel where sting rays, sharks and other unidentified swimming objects move past you on both sides and above you as well.

Kofia Hat

We hiked many miles of Tasmania. In the south the eucalyptus trees grow almost as tall as the California redwoods ( about 50 meters shorter). At one point we stopped to rest and I was clowning around and I made a African hat (a Kofia) from eucalyptus bark. Stephanie wasn't impressed and we moved on.

Tasmania is mostly sheep pastures and wineries.

Here is an example of some of the mushrooms that grow in the pastures. This looks more like a candy apple than a mushroom. It even has crushed peanuts.

Limestone Caves

We visited a town called Mole Creek in northern Tasmania and toured a couple of limestone caves. Plenty of stalagmites and stalagtites. The cave openings ranged from very small openings that we had to squeeze through to 40 to 50 feet high and 20 or 30 feet wide. Most pictures didn't turn out very good due too poor light and poor photography skills.

More pictures of Richmond

All the people in these graveyard pictures are dead.

Town of Richmond. Half hour west of the Capital city of Hobart.

We stayed in Richmond for two days and enjoyed it very much, despite having to sleep in the barn.

Richmond Tasmania

While in Richmond we saw the first bridge that was built in Australia. This bridge was built by convicts so that settlements could be developed further inland. We also toured a winery that a husband and wife started 13 years ago called Puddleduck (excellent Riesling). We also just walked around and admired the beautiful scenery. We saw the oldest Catholic Church (in Australia) which had a graveyard behind it with gravestones from the 1800's. We stayed at the Richmond Arms which had stables in the back, and now today has been converted to accomodations for travelers. We stayed in a top loft which was very roomy and comfortable.(and cheap)